Front Porch
by Nytewing
Summary: Three years after the end of the war, there's something Diana needs to do. Someone she needs to talk to. (Cross-posted on Ao3; Part 1 of the 'Show me a Hero' Series)


A/N: Shhhh... I know I should be writing the next chapter of Who We Were, but this happened in like 20 minutes and it wasn't like pulling teeth unlike WWW so yeah...

Anyhoo, enjoy a (very short) post movie conversation between some people who I feel like deserve more happiness than they're ever given.

Front Porch

"Mr. Trevor?" Diana still found it odd to be using the masculine form of address, but it was the good sort of odd, the sort that meant she was learning to fit in in her new world. Mr. Trevor, Steve's aging father, sat on the gently swaying porch swing. The light breeze coming from the foothills ruffled the grey-blond of his hair and Diana smiled. In this light he looked just like Steve.

"May I join you?" She asked when he didn't respond. He nodded and she settled on the opposite side of the bench from him. The gentle rocking motion was comforting. She found herself thinking how nice one of these would have been on the balcony overlooking the sea back home on – No, she cut the thought off before it had time to wound her. Home was gone, forever lost to her behind a shield of a god's making. There was no use thinking about it now.

"Steve loved watching the sunset," Mr. Trevor said after a few moments of silence. He shook his head a little ruefully, "He would've skinned me for saying it, but my boy had a soft spot for the pretty things in life." He looked over at her for a moment before turning back to the slowly sinking sun. "No offense meant, ma'am."

Diana smiled. "I confess, I am unsure how calling me pretty is offensive, Mr. Trevor."

He chuckled, "Well, I can see why he would like you." Now it was her turn to look away, to take a moment to gather herself before speaking. Even now, three years later, she found it hurt to think of what might have been with Steve.

"I did not come here to intrude upon your mourning," she finally managed to say. "I know it has been a few years and I do not wish to revive your grief, but there is something I feel you must know."

"We accepted that our boy died in the war long ago, Ms. Prince," Mr. Trevor said. He rubbed one weathered hand through his hair with a deep sigh, "Though I won't say it doesn't hurt still."

"You saved the world," Diana blurted, then she blushed. She had been thinking about how to explain what she wanted to say to him for months, ever since Charlie broached the idea in his last letter, and now she had thrown all her careful plans out the window.

"What?" For the first time, Diana felt like Mr. Trevor's full attention was focused on her. He really did look so remarkably like his son.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, "That was not what I meant to say. I mean, it's what I wanted to say, but not like that." She paused and took a deep breath, forcing her thoughts into order as Niobe had taught her to do. "What I mean to say is that Steve saved the world and it was because of you."

"Now," Mr. Trevor smiled, "I'm not sure that's true." He looked back out at the sunset. The sun was just sinking behind the ridge of mountains, streaking the sky with deep purples and reds. "Certainly, every parent wants to think they raised their child to do the right thing, but-"

"No, sir," Diana interrupted, "I mean, yes, you raised him well. But, I was speaking more directly than that. Allow me to explain."

So she did. She explained how she and Steve had met and how even before she knew him he had been risking his life to ensure that as many people as possible survived the war. She told him how his son had feared he wasn't a good person because of the things he had to do and how he continued to do them anyway, making the sacrifice so that others would not have to. She told him about Steve taking up a rifle to defend her home, though they had hardly spoken ten words to each other. At that point she heard the floorboards creak announcing the arrival of Steve's mother. Diana stood from the swing and turned to address them both as she told them how conscientious their son was in ensuring she fit in in London and how even though she didn't need protecting he had stood between her and six men with guns. She told them how he lied to his superiors because it was the right thing to do and how he backed her when she strode across No Man's Land. She told them how they danced in the village they had freed together and how, even as they reveled in their victory, Steve was already thinking ahead to what they would need to do the next day.

Then, she reached the end of her tale.

"I killed him," she said quietly, "I killed the German general but the war didn't end and I didn't understand why. Steve, he tried to explain. He told me that people might not all be good, but that that didn't matter. He said that all that matters is what we believe. Then he left to go continue fighting for what he believed, even when I was too weak to do so."

Mrs. Trevor had moved to sit beside her husband. She was wiping away tears even as she beamed at Diana. Mr. Trevor had his wife's knee in a tight grip even as he raised his head proudly.

"That's our boy," he muttered.

"What happened next?" Mrs. Trevor asked. Diana desperately didn't want to tell them, but this was why she had come here and she owed it to Steve to ensure that his parents knew exactly the sort of man they had raised.

"Doctor Maru had ordered a plane to be filled with bombs carrying her new weapon, a gas that would kill millions of people. Steve and our companions had a plan to destroy the plane high enough in the air that the gas couldn't hurt anyone."

"And my fool son was the only pilot," Mrs. Trevor said quietly. Diana had learned that the other woman was a pilot herself and so she only nodded. That was something that the mother and son had shared and she knew that she had no words to add to it.

"Did he say anything to you before he left?" Mr. Trevor asked.

Diana looked away and bit her lip. "He told me two things," she said, "He said that he would do it because it would save that day, that it would save all the people that bomb would have killed, and so that I could kill the man causing the War. And…" She was unable to say the words aloud.

"He told you he loved you didn't he?" Mrs. Trevor asked.

Diana nodded.

"Oh, my poor idiot son," Mrs. Trevor sighed, "Men never do quite understand timing, do they dear?"

Diana laughed, a little weakly, but the joke was well meant. "I'm glad he said it," she whispered, "I just wish I had said it back."

Mrs. Trevor stood and wrapped her arms around Diana, "I'm sure he knew, dear," she reassured the younger woman, "My Steve was the perceptive sort. He wouldn't have said it to you unless he knew you felt the same way."

They stood in silence for a long moment, the ghost of the man they had all lost filling the spaces and making words hard to find before Mr. Trevor cleared his throat.

"Thank you for telling us, Ms. Prince," he said, "It's… nice to know what happened. I think," he glanced at his wife, "I think we needed to know."

Diana left soon after that, though the Trevors invited her to stay for the night. She couldn't bring herself to impose upon them any further and the house was filled with the presence of a man who she was only beginning to realize she didn't know very well at all. It was odd, she had seen Steve at his worst and at his best and she knew that what she felt for him would not have diminished if she had the chance to know him in peacetime, but when confronted with the details of the life he had lived before the War she found her stomach wrung itself into knots and her knees felt weak with some emotion for which she had no name. It was a thoroughly disconcerting phenomenon and one which she was not eager to explore further.

So, she shook Mr. Trevor's hand and gave Mrs. Trevor a warm kiss on the cheek, and she left without a backwards glance. Inexplicably, she felt as if she had taken something from them and from the town Steve had called home. She settled back into the car she had borrowed for the trip from the airport and pulled away. She drove through the dusty town, past fields of corn that stretched as far as she could see, and finally there was nothing between her and the horizon except sky and Diana could breath again.

Behind her, Smallville shrunk to a speck on the horizon and vanished.

A/N: So, I'm using the backstory that Steve's mom was a test pilot but not the bit about her going down and fighting with the Amazons. I'm basing a bit of her history off Amelie Beese (a german aviatrix/airplane designer) and saying that Diana Rockwell was an engineer who worked on planes for the military and test flew her designs in the lead up to the war.


End file.
